|
ATRL: BoTB 90s Style Week 14: Can't Let Fake Plastic Trees Go
ATRL Moderator
Member Since: 2/19/2003
Posts: 34,484
|
BoTB 90s Style Week 14: Can't Let Fake Plastic Trees Go
|
|
|
Member Since: 8/23/2010
Posts: 16,089
|
This week I have two songs at 4 cause I can't decide which is my favorite.
Missy Elliot, performing All n My Grill (featuring Nicole Wray and Big Boi)
Oh sweet sweet memories, how I love this song. The Missdemeanor I like. I'm accustumed to another version with a genuis french rapper but I have to say Big Boi still does his thing. Still Mc Solaar>>>>> 4
Radiohead, performing Fake Plastic Trees
Exceptional, I so love songs based on guitar. I love the emotion in his voice, the whole thing flows together so beautifully. I think the idea was to convey a feeling of sorrow and despair and we can say he succeeds but somehow I find the song "calming". 4
Weezer, performing Undone (The Sweater Song)
Amazing song,it would have definitely been my most rated song another week. 1
Mariah Carey, performing Can't Let Go
This woman's voice always gets me. Beautiful song. 2
|
|
|
Member Since: 8/23/2010
Posts: 16,089
|
Quote:
Originally posted by Ace Reject
Maybe even tougher than last month?
|
Tougher yes and a month indeed. And it seems like things will just last as long this "week" too.
|
|
|
ATRL Moderator
Member Since: 2/19/2003
Posts: 34,484
|
Quote:
Originally posted by BnPac
Tougher yes and a month indeed. And it seems like things will just last as long this "week" too.
|
Have faith sis! I'll post my rankings later, and then we'll just wait for our regulars.
|
|
|
ATRL Moderator
Member Since: 3/18/2009
Posts: 35,164
|
Quote:
Originally posted by Ace Reject
It's been a while ... I know I shouldn't kept you waiting ... but I'm here now.
|
Ha ha ha! This is fantastic.
|
|
|
ATRL Moderator
Member Since: 3/18/2009
Posts: 35,164
|
The rankings came easy to me this week; it was explaining why that was more of the hard part. (Sorry for turning these all into mini-essays...)
Missy Elliot, performing All n My Grill (featuring Nicole Wray and Big Boi): 2
If this song belonged to literally any other artist, it would probably resonate infinitely more with me. There are certainly plenty of interesting things happening in the composition and production—violins in hip-hop? I love that ****!—but there is nothing distinctively Missy about it. How did an early Timbo collaboration ever get so generic? This sounds like it could be a (really good) deep cut from that old Monica album you never listened to all the way through. What were voters thinking throwing Missy under the bus like this?
Radiohead, performing Fake Plastic Trees: 4
Not every band is fortunate enough to have a frontman like Thom Yorke, and this song is a true showcase for the best of what Radiohead has to offer: his uniquely haunting, yet stirring, voice. By initially limiting the instrumentation to a simple acoustic guitar, it allows his affectingly melancholy vocal performance to become the track's centerpiece. That delicate cry of pain bores right into the listener's soul—it's totally ambiguous, so it can mean anything to anyone. And the slowly building orchestration takes you right along with it, toward a climax of catharsis and release. (I will fully admit that this song actually brought me to tears the first time I heard it.) I don't even care that the lyrics make no sense—the song is designed for maximum impact, and it gets me every time. This is alt rock perfection.
Weezer, performing Undone (The Sweater Song): 1
I like how oppressively dissonant the opening riff is (and how the song still manages to find a melody through that); I don't like how mockingly so the entire production becomes by the end. For a track that has choppy-quick cuts from verse to chorus and back, its seems entirely misguided—and/or pretentiously ironic—to spend almost the entire second half of the piece deconstructing, and then collapsing, its composition into lo-fi white noise. Add in almost a minute of introduction and there begins to feel like very little substance to the proceedings. This one would do a lot better to be short and sweet like "Buddy Holly," because it has a great hook.
Mariah Carey, performing Can't Let Go: 3
I did not expect to like this as much as I did. Despite the slightly belabored early '90s R&B production, and despite steering toward cheesy power ballad bombast at times, the song does not always go to the obvious places—and that keeps it more genuine and interesting. Mariah's vocals are also a lot more restrained and honest than in some of her most recognizable hits. Sure, she goes on a couple of epic runs in there, but they feel more earned and less showy; I never get the sense that she's trying to impress me (except maybe on that final glory note...).
|
|
|
Member Since: 10/28/2009
Posts: 26,465
|
Oh, analysis thread. I'll have to do this later
|
|
|
ATRL Moderator
Member Since: 2/19/2003
Posts: 34,484
|
Can't Let Go
Many times Mariah is criticed for oversinging, and not connecting with the lyrics; even the ones she's co-written. Many of those times, I agree.
Not here. Not only do I think this is the finest ballad Mariah has ever released as a single, it's one of her finest works as a lyricist/composer. More than that, she probably hasn't put a better vocal down, and certainly not one that gets the lyric so well. Everything that she typically does, and did in the early 90s - the backtracked harmonies, the hovering in her low register, the full chest belts, the transitions into head voice, that damn whistle, all makes melodic, lyrical and emotional sense. It's the sound of a young woman's heart breaking, and Mariah perfectly taps into the feelings of being trapped and haunted by a failed relationship. When she hits the high note at the end, it's not showboating; it's the only way she can express her pain. 4.
I love - LOVE - all of the rest of these weeks songs, and they're all powerful in their own ways, but they can't compare.
Undone (The Sweater Song) - 3
Fake Plastic Trees - 2
All n My Grill - 1 (I concur supa)
|
|
|
ATRL Senior Member
Member Since: 6/23/2008
Posts: 14,330
|
Radiohead Fake Plastic Trees (4)
Mariah Carey Can't Let Go (3)
Missy Elliot All n My Grill (2)
Weezer Undone (The Sweater Song) (1)
|
|
|
Member Since: 1/13/2010
Posts: 5,334
|
Fake Plastic Trees is epic
(I'll do a ranking later, just wanted to say that )
|
|
|
Member Since: 2/26/2006
Posts: 62,897
|
Radiohead, performing Fake Plastic Trees (4)
Weezer, performing Undone (The Sweater Song) (3)
Mariah Carey, performing Can't Let Go (2)
Missy Elliot, performing All n My Grill (featuring Nicole Wray and Big Boi) (1)
|
|
|
|
|